SCUTTLEBUTT

Painful red tape

Without proper healthcare services, the struggle between patients and hospitals will remain a common problem.

A hospital that is a household name among the affluent and middle-class in Manila is noticeably becoming more of a business endeavor and less a health service provider.

According to a relative of a patient, whom this writer noticed was murmuring while in a long queue in the billing section, she was wondering why it was taking so long to compute the bill as her husband was to be discharged after a lung operation two weeks ago.

“The hospital is thick with bureaucratic hurdles. I have to transfer windows to get some papers even if the clerks are just a seat apart. Just to settle your bill takes about two hours transferring windows,” she said.

The problem of those seeking discounts or availing of charity privileges is naturally doubled with the hospital requirement to submit papers to the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office and Department of Social Welfare and Development for medical and financial aid.

The problem of those seeking discounts or availing of charity privileges is naturally doubled with the hospital requirement to submit papers to the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) and Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) for medical and financial aid.

“Just to complete the requirements took us all of two days. We had to fall in line at the DSWD, then the PCSO. We were told the hospital has good doctors and specialists but the process is so slow,” according to another patient’s relative.

The hospital also requires patients to put up deposits, a clear violation of Republic Act 8344, which specifically penalizes any proprietor, officer, medical practitioner, and employee of a hospital or medical clinic who solicits, demands, or accepts a deposit or any other form of advance payment as a prerequisite for medical treatment or confinement.

Pastor’s divine wealth?

Arrested Pastor Apollo Quiboloy has tens of billions of pesos worth of gold bars, according to a gemologist who was frequently asked to assess the quality of the bars that the Appointed Son of God claimed came from “Japanese loot hidden in the country.”

The gemologist was one of those who conducted assay tests on Quiboloy’s gold bars during the term of President Rodrigo Duterte.

Quiboloy was active in searching for gold bars and diamonds hidden by the Japanese before the end of World War II, according to the source, who said that 837 bars of pure gold were loaded onto two Chinese military aircraft that landed at the Davao International Airport on 8 June 2018 and 23 June 2018. The cargo at the time was worth around P70 million.

“Before they loaded the gold bars, we assayed them one by one to test their purity. All the bars were pure gold based on our assay test,” the gemologist told this writer.

The first Chinese military aircraft with body number IL-76 was designed to conduct tactical and strategic airlift missions, transport of troops and evacuation. The second Chinese aircraft landed in Davao City two weeks later.

“The gold bars that we assayed were of 99.9-percent gold purity. Quiboloy is so rich but we also heard the gold bars were not only his but also of his partner in treasure hunting,” added the gemologist.

Information from Davao sources at the time said the Chinese cargo planes were at the airport only for a brief refueling stop from Australia, raising newsmen’s eyebrows.

The truth is those two planes loaded billions of pesos worth of gold, according to the gemologist.